


so it goes

by bastaerd



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Character Death, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd
Summary: “I haven’t heard a word from you,” Francis goes on. “Well, seen a single word. Written, that is.”John sighs. He knows what Francis is trying to do, because this is what he has been trying to do for the past couple of months, give or take. “No,” he agrees, “you haven’t.”A single eyebrow goes up. “And that’s because…?”“Because I haven’t written anything. Francis…”“I’m chastising you, don’t ‘Francis’ me. You’re not happy anymore, John. I don’t know what you are, but I know it isn’t that.”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier & John Bridgens, Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, John Bridgens/Harry Peglar
Comments: 15
Kudos: 21
Collections: The Terror Bingo





	so it goes

**Author's Note:**

> for the [terrorbingo](https://theterrorbingo.tumblr.com/) prompt **_loss_**  
>  title from vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse-Five_ because it's lived in my head rent-free ever since i decided i needed to read it in 11th grade.
> 
> tw:  
> \- peglar and fitzjames have both died from terminal illnesses (implied to be cancer) before this fic starts, though there's a flashback to the night of fitzjames' death.  
> \- mention of animal death. skip from _After they rounded the block and found the crowd rather thinner in the way they were going, James sighed and broke the silence._ to _James checked his watch._  
>  \- implied suicide, though i'm not certain how clearly it comes across. still, avoid it by skipping from _The phone rang once, twice._ to _"John?"_

John Bridgens’ most recent book topped the bestseller lists for poetry for weeks after its publication. Critics called it a roaring success, a triumph, a must-read for any lover of the written word. If it did not cement John’s status as one of, if not  _ the _ greatest poet among his contemporaries, then the bar must be up in the stratosphere.

John Bridgens has not written a single word in more than a year.

The typewriter sits in a little room where it is the focal point, on a small desk just underneath the window. The wall adjacent is lined floor-to-ceiling with a bookcase containing only a fraction of all the books John has read in his lifetime, and beside it, a lumpy plaid armchair, rescued one day years ago from the curb so that it could be patched up and then loved into the ground again. Resting on the seat cushion is a folded blanket. The door to the room remains closed but not shut, just ajar so that John can catch a glimpse inside when he passes it walking down the hall to his bedroom, a sliver of the bookcase, the chair, the blanket. It hurts badly when they are bathed in sunlight.

It does not take a tremendous effort to raise himself from his bed, not anymore, but John still has to pause after he pulls himself upright and before he stands, which he chalks up to his age and not to anything else. He does not like to think of what anything else might be, because he knows that if he thinks about it, he will be right, and then he will have to face what he has unearthed from himself. Nowadays, he prefers to keep his thoughts away from himself and his immediate surroundings. Rather than grasping for the empty space beside him on the bed, he thinks about meeting Francis for lunch, the brittle conversation they will make. Checks his alarm clock; finds that he has hours to go until then, because he likes to wake as early as he can stand to wake. Today, he has slept in, but it is still only 7:30 AM.

One may expect a writer to talk to themselves around their house, even while alone. John does not. The problem is not that words do not come easily to him anymore, but that they make constant intruders of themselves. He has an overabundance of words for a place that requires none at all. Instead, he puts a record on, listens to Copland’s  _ Appalachian Spring _ and finds peace in the open chords while he toasts a piece of bread for himself and fries an egg. After he has his breakfast, he showers, and then takes the solemn walk back to his bedroom to change out of his robe and pajamas and into his clothing for the day. He dresses himself in a soft, blue sweater over a cream-colored shirt, grey slacks, and a pair of well-worn boots.

It is not difficult not to write; it has graduated from a livelihood to the sort of thing John does not do because it is out of his means, like yachting, or like playing the piano. That part of his life has been removed with no straggling remainder. In its place, he reads as much as he can bring himself to read, which amounts to mostly the newspaper, which he scours front and back to wring every printed word he can from its pages. The only section he does not read is the obituaries.

This is what has become routine to him. A year ago, the John from then would hardly recognize this one, but change happens to everyone.

At noon, John wraps himself in a jacket and scarf and meets Francis at a coffee shop for lunch. Francis is already seated at a narrow booth, with a diner mug of coffee steaming in front of him. He stands as he sees John arrive, and waves him over.

“Ah, John,” he greets him, slinging an arm over his shoulder as they share a brief hug. Physical affection like this has never come easily for Francis, not when it isn’t in a paternal context, or a romantic one, so it comes off as stiff to any witnesses, but John welcomes the gesture.

“Francis,” he says in turn, nodding to Francis’ mug as they both sit and he unwinds his scarf. “I hope I haven’t run late by accident.”

“Oh, no,” Francis assures him. “I ended up getting here early and wanted something for the chill.”

John, himself, is still red about the nose and cheeks from the outside cold, only nipping, and not biting yet as it will when fall gives way to winter properly. He chose to take the half-hour walk here because he thought it ought to do him some good to move his legs, and as a result he feels warm in his clothes but cold to the touch.

“Suppose I should order something for that, too,” he says with a laugh. They both place their orders when the waitress comes by next, and John gets tea for himself. When it comes, he adds milk, but no sugar. He and Francis spend a good amount of time shooting the shit. Before, it had felt obligatory, like they were making small talk at a party where each was the only person the other recognized. It comes easier now, conversation, and they go back and forth about their lives. Francis has much more to say on the subject than John does, but John has always been more content to ask questions and to listen than to ramble on about himself. They touch upon the Star Trek film coming out in a couple of months; neither of them have much interest in going to the movies, but doubtless Tom Blanky will drag Francis out to see it, and also doubtless that John will be welcome to invite himself along.

“For moral support.” Francis tacks it on with a wry little smile, and John knows that it is less of a joke than it sounds. Though he enjoys the idea of seeing a movie with friends, he has the feeling that, on the day of, a pall will come over him and he will find himself unable to step over the threshold of his own apartment.

“I’ll be thinking of you while you’re at the theater,” he tells Francis instead, reaching over the table to pat his wrist and drawing back again. His smile feels tight, even on his own face, and Francis gives him one of those looks like he just wants John to say what it is that he has not said yet, but lets it go. It is a small mercy, but one John is grateful for.

Their food comes, an overstuffed-to-the-point-of-spillage sandwich with chips for Francis and a bowl of soup with a buttered and toasted slice of baguette for John, and their conversation slows so they can tuck in. It cannot be delayed for long, though, and soon, they find themselves at the topic John has been avoiding and Francis has been ignoring, more for John’s sake than for his own. Even when they approach it from a different angle than the last time, they can never hide from it for long.

It starts off innocuously, when John asks, “So, Francis, what have you been up to since last week?” and Francis purses his lips, so that John has a split second to prepare himself before the answer comes.

“I visited James,” Francis replies. His voice has gone quiet around the name, as it usually does, as if to cradle it, and he takes a moment after that to recover, which requires putting his mug down and his hands flat on the table. John watches him, waits for him to continue, if he means to continue, and tries not to feel the way his heart has crawled up into his throat. “Brought him some flowers, I figured he’d appreciate the thought, at least, even if I know fuck all about the meanings and neither did the florist,” Francis continues, speaking more towards his plate than to his company, but John understands. Sometimes it is easier to speak to no one and be heard by someone than to speak to someone and risk them not listening. “I paid a visit to Henry, too.”

“Oh.” John is not sure what to say to that. He does not know if there is anything to say. “Thank you.”

Francis pulls that wry smile again, scoffs good-naturedly through it, but the sound trips on its way out. John translates it as  _ It was no hardship, I was in the area, it’s not like you haven’t done the same favor for me. _ “I told him I was keeping a watchful eye on you,” Francis tells him, and John would be lying if he said that the thought of Henry worrying about him did not squeeze around his heart.

“I’d bet he was grateful to hear that,” John says in return, speaking past the sudden lump in his throat which grows when speaking about Henry, “though I’m afraid there’s not much to keep watch for. You know this is about the most exciting thing I get up to.” The  _ nowadays _ goes unspoken, understood silently between the two of them. Things are different now. Things have changed.

Francis takes a long drink of his coffee. When he puts his mug down, he says, “I know, John. That’s why I said it.”

“It’s hardly worth a promise, Francis.”

“Henry’s worth a promise,” Francis counters. “And if it was the other way around, you’d tell me James is worth a promise.” John finds himself unable to argue with that logic; he supposes it would end in tears on both their parts, anyway, and it has been a long time since they have both cried in this particular restaurant. It would not do to pick at the scab. “I haven’t heard a word from you,” Francis goes on. “Well, seen a single word. Written, that is.”

John sighs. He knows what Francis is trying to do, because this is what he has been trying to do for the past couple of months, give or take. “No,” he agrees, “you haven’t.”

A single eyebrow goes up. “And that’s because…?”

“Because I haven’t written anything. Francis…”

“I’m chastising you, don’t ‘Francis’ me,” Francis replies in that jokingly paternal tone he employs when someone he cares very deeply about is being a stubborn ass. John has some years on him, and it has never stopped him from feeling like a teenager being scolded for staying out late. “You’re not happy anymore, John. I don’t know what you are, but I know it isn’t that.”

He reaches across the table, pats John’s wrist in much the same way as John had patted his earlier. “And don’t tell me you can’t, because I wouldn’t bother pestering you every week to come out and have lunch if I thought you couldn’t.”

“I won’t argue that point with you,” John concedes with a sigh, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t  _ write.  _ Not a single word.”

“Is it that you can’t, or that you won’t?”

John shakes his head. For a moment, he stirs his soup, feeling Francis’ eyes on him as he collects himself, trying to find the means to do so in the bits of chopped carrot and onion his spoon kicks up. “That doesn’t matter,” he says at last. “My career is done. I’ve written my last, and I’ll have a bit to go on from it, where money’s concerned.”

Unmitigated disappointment swims across Francis’ eyes. “I’ve never taken you for a defeatist, John.”

“I’m not a defeatist. I’m only an old man with few illusions.”

“You’re calling yourself an old man,” Francis points out, “and you actually mean it, this time. That smells defeatist to me.”

John sighs, shakes his head once more. It is useless to say that Francis would not understand, because Francis is perhaps the one man he knows who would understand the most. In fact, there is much that Francis could say John does not understand, and he would be right. Grief clings differently to every person, and with John, it pulls at his extremities. His knees ache with it, his elbows, his knuckles. It makes it painful to hold a pencil.

As if sensing John’s exhaustion, Francis lets up, finally. “Write, John,” he tells him gently. “Even if it’s one word. Even if that one word is utter shit. If nothing else, you’ll be writing.”

* * *

“Well, I think this calls for a celebration.”

The idea was James’, of course. The man took any excuse he could to throw a party, even if it was just the four of them, sitting around his and Francis’ coffee table at 5 o’clock on a weekday. That was where they were now, John and Henry on the couch, James in the chair with one leg thrown over the arm of it, and Francis just beside him, standing, with his arm over James’ shoulder so the man could lean back into him. A lovely teal brocade scarf sits wrapped about his shoulders and gives him the appearance of some Greek deity of decadence in humble surroundings. Francis leans down to drop a kiss to James’ hair, and James turns his head up, steals one against Francis’ cheek in return. Smiling at the two of them, John straightens the blanket around Henry’s shoulders, tucking it around him more securely. In retaliation, Henry frees one hand and uses it to pull John’s arm up and over himself, tucking himself into John’s side.

In the middle of the table, as if in offering, sits John’s new book. It had arrived at John and Henry’s address earlier that morning, though the package had been addressed to John Bridgens. Now, here it is, never opened, spine still unmarred and pages still uncreased. Henry had the habit of dog-earing his books. John used to take issue with it, but slowly came to tolerate it, and then to regard those tagged corners as breadcrumbs: Henry stopped on this page before turning in for bed, Henry marked this page before he and John set about making dinner. The spaces between vary, as some days are easier than others for Henry to keep track of words on paper, but they are precious no matter the frequency. John can’t wait to find this book full with creases, to chart Henry’s progress through it as if following a treasure map.

Francis raised his glass of sparkling cider. “I believe a toast is in order,” he announced, and James said, “Oh, Francis, do you?” while pinching his hip.

“Can’t get through a conversation without rolling their eyes at each other, those two,” John said to Henry, who smiled up at him, and tucked him a bit closer. Henry adjusted his blanket, then, so that it was around the both of them, eliminating any spare breath of space that put itself in their way. With a pointed look towards James, Francis raised his glass again and began.

“To a book well-written.”

“To the end of a long and grueling publishing process,” added James, who perhaps understood it as well as John did.

“To John,” said Henry, which was all he needed to say. John ducked his head bashfully, unused to the attention and endlessly tickled that his friends thought the world of him, as he did of them. Raising his own glass, he offered his own toast.

“To good company,” he said. Their glasses chimed together to produce a bell toll.

Later, after they’d had their drinks and their dinner at the coffee table, after Francis has brought out the cake he and James had baked earlier that day and James had painstakingly decorated even with stiff fingers and clumsy hands and after they’d tucked the whole thing quite decidedly away, John volunteered to help Francis with the dishes. Francis put up a protest about it, as had James, since this was John’s party and all, but John had insisted, and found himself in the kitchen with Francis, scrubbing buttercream frosting from glass plates. The sounds of James and Henry in conversation floated in, loud enough to be heard but too quiet to distinguish anything, but there was laughter. It made the both of them smile.

“Does it hurt you?” Francis said. John, up to his wrists in a soapy sink, looked over, surprised at the question.

“Does what hurt me?” he asked, and Francis hummed. His eyebrows went up, his eyes went towards the doorway, through which came the sound of Henry’s and James’ voices. From the cadence, it seemed James was in the middle of regaling Henry with one of his old stories about his travels. John pursed his lips, listened to the beloved noise of Henry’s laughter.

“It doesn’t hurt me,” John finally answered. His voice felt obscenely loud. “It’s not what hurts me.” He didn’t feel like he was lying in saying so. Every ounce of his pain stemmed not from Henry’s presence, but from the thing he didn’t like to think about. In those moments where it became something undeniable and imminent, that was when the knife twisted. Beside him, Francis nodded, dropped his head, then went back to scraping the sugary remainder off of what had been James’ dish.

“Sometimes I wish there were days I didn’t need to cherish,” he admitted quietly. “That there were some I could take for granted and not be damned by the consequences.”

John spared a glance towards the living room. There was James, still in his scarf, one hand around a steaming cup of tea while his other gesticulated in the air; Henry hadn’t moved from where he sat on the couch, but had at some point kicked off his shoes and reclined along the length of it.

“Have you talked to him about it, Francis?” John asked. Francis scoffed, shaking his head.

“You give me more credit than I’m due, where bravery’s concerned,” he replied. “I’ve told myself James wouldn’t want to be reminded of the unavoidable, but the truth is, I’m a coward who can’t face it.”

“You’re anything but a coward,” John said. “Both of you. You’re stronger men than I’ve ever known.”

“Selling yourself and Henry short, hmm?”

John smiled, a small pull of his mouth. It got an answering grimace from Francis, who sighed, and then put the dish and fork in the sink, emptying his hands and turning to lean back against the counter. “The truth is,” he went on, more quietly now, “I don’t think I could get the first word of it out. To put it to words would…”

“Would break you apart,” John supplied. “Because it would mean that this is real.”

“It would mean that this is the trajectory of our lives,” Francis agreed. “This is what’ll see James through to the end. It would feel like a goodbye, John, and I can’t tell him goodbye yet.” There was a pause while he gathered himself. First he drew in a long, ragged breath, then scrubbed a hand down over his face. Whatever he had meant to say seemed to dissipate with it. John rinsed the soap from his hands and shut off the faucet, and saw Francis’ eyes go to it for a split second.

_ “You’re _ what’ll see him through to the end,” said John as he dried his hands. “All the more reason to talk to him, so that you two can have conversations about this that aren’t goodbyes.”

Francis gave a watery chuckle. “Conversations,” he repeated, “god. I can’t get through  _ talking _ about talking about it and you’re thinking of doing it more than once.”

John put his hand on Francis’ arm. “I wouldn’t have said it if I thought you couldn’t.”

From the living room, James called out, “I know you two have decided to make servants of yourselves, but won’t you join us now?” and Francis schooled himself back into composure.

“It seems we have no choice,” he said, clasping John’s hand gratefully in the second before he nudged it off from his shoulder, “if our men command it.”

“Damn right we do.” That was Henry.

John and Francis left the kitchen to rejoin the tiny party.

* * *

Later that night, when they had arrived back home and changed from their layers of outside clothes into pajamas and blankets, Henry turned onto his side to face John in bed, and John turned onto his side to face Henry.

“Which story was James telling you tonight?” John asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “While Francis and I were busy with the dishes, I mean.”

Henry gave a quiet laugh. “The one about the kayak,” he answered.

“Oh? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.” He had, of course, but not from Henry.

“That’s right, he only ever tells it every month. It’s practically limited edition.” Henry’s fingers skimmed John’s cheek. They were still chilled from the weather outside, and John took his hand in his own and rubbed the warmth back in. “He’d been out kayaking with Le Vesconte, that French bastard, when his boat’d overturned. He went all the way under, had to be pulled up again, but he lived to tell the tale.”

“And many more.”

“And many, many more.” Henry said it with a smile, a little purse of his lips, to which he brought John’s hands. There, he pressed his mouth to John’s knuckles, letting him feel the warmth of his breath across them.

“What were you talking about?” he asked him. “In the kitchen with Francis, while James was practically holding my head underwater himself.”

John hesitated, stuttering in his movement where he was rubbing Henry’s hand. For all he had urged Francis to talk to James, now the thought of revealing their conversation to Henry seemed like an admission of something else, something far worse. The longer he remained silent, the more Henry’s expression fell, until his smile disappeared completely.

“John?”

With a heavy sigh that left his chest feeling cavernous, John closed his hands around Henry’s and grasped it. “We were talking about James,” he said at last.

“Oh,” said Henry. Then, “Oh, John.”

The thought never escaped him that he and Henry ought to have a talk sometime, like the talk John had advised Francis to have with James so that they could talk about it more and wear some of the gloom off of it. Still, the thought of putting words to it aloud-- to any of it-- felt like stepping over a threshold over which they could never go back, not together. Whatever spurred Orpheus to turn around had its hold of John.

“He loves him very much,” he said with his lips against Henry’s forehead. “So much so that he can’t help but worry for the future.”

“For his future, you mean.” Henry’s voice held neither venom nor resignation, only a melancholy like a calm sea.  _ James’ future is already plotted out, _ he didn’t say.  _ His is definite; Francis’ is the one that’ll hang in the balance afterwards. _ It could scare John that he didn’t have to ask for clarification to understand it, but he had always been able to read Henry from the tone of his voice, the curve of his brows, the dimples in his cheeks as well as he could read the classics. Would he be as Hero to Henry’s Leander? There was no lantern that could be kept alight against this, no storm to swim against, only the persistent current of time.

He was saved from thinking of a response when Henry sighed, whispered, “Can we sleep now, John?” against his chest. Then the only thing he had to say was, “Of course, Henry.”

* * *

The rest of his day, John fills with whatever he can think of. It is not the desperation of a man who must occupy himself or be left alone in his own thoughts, though it had been at one time. Now, it has softened to something perhaps more pitiable: the resignation of himself to time, letting it bat him about, subject to the whims of the present, having blocked off the past from recall and unable to conceive of the future past that which is immediate. On the one hand, this is no way to live; on the other, he has achieved that state of eccentricity where cashiers know him by name. A strange sensation, when one is supposed to be only transient. He feels weightless now, and not in a joyful way, but in the way that comes from being devoid.

What Francis said to him echoes from the back of John’s mind. How long has it been since he has sat at his typewriter and banged out a word or two? Of course, he knows the answer down to the day, and perhaps down to the hour if he sat around to think about it, which he does his utmost not to. It has been almost as long since he has paid a visit to his favorite bookshop. The owner would still recognize him, but would ask how he’s getting along, and having to come up with that answer might ruin it.  _ Another time, _ he tells himself, as he always does now when the name of the store floats through his consciousness. He buys his groceries in silence and smiles politely at the cashier as she rings him up. The cost at the end of the receipt has grown into less of a surprise by now, but the thought of acknowledging it in his budget, setting aside the extra grocery money for something else, feels like desecration.

John lets himself into his apartment, a grocery bag in each hand, light enough for him to turn the key as one hangs from his other three fingers. These he brings to the kitchen and sets on the counter, and then goes about the process of putting everything away in its proper spot. He buys a lot of vegetables, as well as flour and yeast to make his own bread. Last year, he had read in some publication that processed foods are nebulously bad for one’s health, and though he knows better than to believe every unsubstantiated claim he reads on its own, it had not been the time to take chances. He cooks what he has gotten used to cooking, and hesitates to abandon it so easily. Hearty fare, if lacking in flavor.

Groceries all put away, he puts Bernstein’s  _ Symphony No. 2 _ on the turntable to fill the empty space around him as he rolls his earlier conversation with Francis around in his head.  _ It’s been an awfully long time for a writer not to write, _ he thinks,  _ but, then again, you’re not a writer. _

Rather, John Bridgens  _ has been _ a writer; he is no longer one anymore. That life has gone away from him, and he is distanced enough from it that he does not mourn it. His bookshelves have entire rows of old notebooks and published works alike, drafts and manuscripts rejected and accepted. Ink stains litter the furniture, smeared where he had tried to clean them off with a good scrubbing. The evidence of his livelihood is inescapable in the home. The most he can do is close the door on the worst offense of it.

The question lingers with him, how long has it been since he has opened a book? Read one cover to cover? The thought brings about as much pleasure to him now as does the idea of taking up jogging-- that is, it falls into that category of activities that are advised, but unnecessary, and more for the purpose of keeping up appearances than anything else. John has no appearances to worry about keeping up. He has never habituated himself to lying to the point where one would have to struggle to find fiction in his poetry. He finds it difficult to reconcile the man who wrote them all with the man he is now, sitting in his living room and wondering when he stopped being John Bridgens and started being a familiar stranger.

He cooks in silence, mitigated only by the baritone of his humming, and eats in similar quiet.

It is only three days later that he finds a notebook he could not remember purchasing-- it has never been opened, the binding still smooth, hidden amongst its fellows on his nightstand. When he goes to get a pen, he finds them mostly dried-up, and grabs the pencil from the address book by his telephone instead, sitting at the kitchen table with the notebook in front of him like a full plate. It is an hour before he opens it, poises his hand to write, but his courage abandons him before pencil meets paper.

* * *

When James invited him to come shopping with him, there was no way for John to say no, both because James rarely left much leeway where his invitations were concerned, and because both of them needed gifts to give for Francis’ birthday. The real present, of course, would be his party, but the wrapped gifts had yet to be purchased. It was tradition, or it had become tradition, to gift Francis everything from the frivolous to the risqué; this had started off as a way of poking fun at his staunch utilitarianism, and had just snowballed from there into something time-honored, as sacred as the day itself.

Of course, this found the two of them in a lingerie shop which John had set foot once or twice in, in his illustrious career of existing as a gay man, and which James had visited often enough for the employee at the counter to both know him by name and recognize that John was not the man he was with-- was not Francis, rather. This was either due to the frequency of his visits or the quality of his personality.

James tutted at the price tag on a lace teddy. John knew that money was little object for James Fitzjames, who had as strict a budget but rather different priorities than he, and so the price was more another nail in the coffin of this particular piece of lingerie than its own new offense. “This wouldn’t do,” he said to himself. “I know it’s for Francis’ birthday, but I’d like to at least get some use out of it.”

“Wouldn’t it be a little large for you, anyway,” John pointed out. James was a slender man, had been even before this had come upon him. He maintained his dressing habits as if he had not shed a single kilogram, the only difference being the number of layers he wore and the size of his scarf collection.

“Oh, not for me to wear,” James corrected him, “but for me to enjoy. It’s one of those backhanded sorts of gifts, more for the giver than for the recipient.” He moved on to the next rack. “Still definitely a gag, though. It wouldn’t be Francis’ birthday if it wasn’t, and I’ve got to make this one count.”

His wrist trembled as he moved aside a hanger to inspect a flouncy set. “God, what does a man have to do to make the last birthday he spends with the love of his life a memorable one?” he said suddenly, and then gave a tremulous laugh, clinging with one hand to the hanger that held a frilly red bra and French-cut briefs set. Then, he just stood there, head bowed, his back rising and falling with the deep, long breaths he drew, and John realized that he had very little to give in the way of advice.

“It won’t be the last,” he said, hoping his voice conveyed the surety he felt. “And I’m sure you’ve made every birthday memorable for Francis.”

“Oh, memorable, certainly.” James gave another of those brittle laughs. “The birthday before his lover kicked it, that’ll certainly go down in his personal history.” He rubbed shiny satin between his fingers. “What a thing to remember me by,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll be dead before I turn another year older and here I am, trying to decide which négligée I want Francis to…”

There, he cut himself off, shaking his head. “Damn it all, I’ll take the whole rack,” he declared, straightening his back and plastering his face into some construction of himself. Of course, he did not end up purchasing every piece on the rack-- that was too ostentatious, even for him, and he prided himself on his exacting standards-- but he did very nearly. As he paid, his face held no trace of the contained explosion back in the rows of merchandise, and he winked when the cashier commented on the volume of his purchase. That was perhaps even more worrying than what he had admitted in the store, and as he and John left and started down the sidewalk to window shop, John said, “You’ve got a long way to go before it comes time to worry.” He spoke from experience, or, rather, he spoke from what the doctor had told Henry and that Henry had relayed back to him, and from the research he had been doing on his own. In all his years of voracious reading, he didn’t think he had done so much reading as he did within the past year in that regard. Usually, he read with the ease of someone taking a leisurely stroll; nowadays, he read with a quality he would ascribe to someone hunting during a famine. He would shoot rodents in the dirt and for Henry’s sake call it a feast.

But James, who was in Henry’s position, looked askance at him. “It’s not worrying I do,” he said, sounding very tired. “It’s something different, I’m afraid, and much more depressing.”

“Leave the mourning to the rest of us,” John replied. “We’ll decide when to start and how to do it. Until then, fill your thoughts with something happier, James.” Quieter, he added, “Have you learned something at your last appointment to make you preoccupied?”

“Only that I’m still dying slowly.” James said it with a scoff, his head aloft in defiance and giving the air of Marie Antoinette going to the guillotine more than a man walking down the sidewalk, his arms decked with shopping bags full of lingerie. “There’s nothing to be done, and I refuse to lose my dignity along with the rest of myself.”

They walked in silence for a spell. The air was chilly with the coming autumn, cold now only with the summer months in retrospect, and James had opted for a green and gold scarf, fashionably tucked into his jacket but pulled snug around his neck to conserve his own warmth. John, on the other hand, was perfectly comfortable with a long-sleeved button down with a cardigan over it, which he left unbuttoned. Between the two of them, he was clearly the old man, but James was the one who shivered like he was.

After they rounded the block and found the crowd rather thinner in the way they were going, James sighed and broke the silence. “Francis had a dog,” he began, in a way that indicated he had a destination in mind and he had opted to take the scenic route to get there. “A Newfoundland, named Neptune. This was while he and Sophy were dating, so this must have been a decade ago, though I’ve no idea how old the dog was when they got it.”

He pursed his lips, drew up a bitter expression around it like he had just sucked on a lemon. “It died, anyway,” he went on, “as things do. Francis said he knew it was coming, because it had lost its appetite, and then one day refused food entirely. He and Sophy drove it to the veterinarian, and that was that.”

John hadn’t known Francis in the pre-James days, but from what he had picked up over the years, Francis’ relationship with Sophia had been strained. Now, she got along fine with the both of them, Francis and James, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the existence of the relationship was what had done it, if they were the sort who were better as friends than any alternative. She had gone to visit them, John had heard, every once in a while, and her visits had increased in frequency after the onset of James’ illness.

“I can’t tell when I’m hungry or not,” James said suddenly, and then swallowed. “It’s all the same to me now. I tell when to eat by the time, or because Francis asks. It all tastes like… like dust and lead, I can hardly choke anything down, but I know that one day I won’t be able to stomach it at all.”

He cast John a tragic look. John couldn’t tell whether he wanted him to comfort him or to tell him it wouldn’t be like that, that he wouldn’t go the same way as the dog who was put down. Perhaps neither would suffice, and would just leave the both of them sad and unsatisfied. Henry had come home one day and said that Dr. McDonald had advised him that he would likely lose his appetite, so John had taken to consulting the pamphlet about healthy nutrition that the doctor had sent Henry home with, rather than asking Henry what and when he felt like eating. It was easier on the both of them that way, he told himself. And that was how he wanted things to be for Henry: easier.

James checked his watch. “Lunchtime already?” he said with a breezy laugh that betrayed the redness around his nose and eyes. “And here I thought we were just getting started.”

* * *

A yawn came from the kitchen doorway. John, sauteing vegetables at the stove, turned to see Henry there, rubbing his eyes first and then combing his fingers through his mussed hair. He wore his pajama shirt, and over that one of John’s cardigans, but still shivered in the wool. Sleep tended to make him cold, like it sapped his warmth while his eyes were closed.

“Dinnertime already?” he asked, shuffling into the kitchen to where John was, his stockinged feet sliding on the tile. It was warmer here, and John budged over so that Henry could stand closer, putting an arm around him so that they could occupy some of the same space. “Slept longer than I meant to.”

“That just means you needed the rest,” said John, dropping a kiss to Henry’s temple as he scooted onions and peppers around the pan with a wooden spoon. “I was either going to write or cook. Thought cooking was the less likely option to disturb you.”

“Yeah, hearing you thinking so hard would’ve woken me right up.” Henry yawned again through a smile, coming to settle more of his weight against John’s side; John was more than happy to accept the burden of it. “Anyway, I’d’ve wanted you to read to me-”

“I’ve told you, Henry, you’ll get to hear it as many times as you want once it’s published-”

“-and since you’re a stubborn bastard about that, I’d’ve begged until you read me some of your old stuff, and you wouldn’t have gotten anything done.”

John cut the heat, set down the spoon against the pan. Henry seemed to preen under his undivided attention, and he couldn’t help but kiss him again between his eyes and brush the sleep-mussed hair out of his forehead. His cheekbones were horribly stark, but he had a lightness to his eyes that John had noticed the first time they met and had kept marked in his heart ever since, and he clung to it like a boat hugging the shore in a storm. John brushed a thumb along Henry’s jaw, cupping his face for a moment, and Henry smiled, his cheek rounding under John’s palm.

“Kiss me proper,” said Henry, and John obliged.

They ate at their kitchen table, sitting at places perpendicular to each other so that they could remain close, one of Henry’s hands in one of John’s. Henry picked at his chicken, but they took a long dinner, filled with both conversation and easy silences. The sound of Henry’s voice took John’s mind off of the absence of the sounds of utensils on his plate, and he had always been content to listen, to be a passive party to the conversation.

“How’s the book coming along?” Henry asked as John cleared the dishes.

“As slow-going as it wants to be.” John answered, setting both plates in the sink and rinsing them under the spray of the faucet. He heard Henry behind him, still at the table, give a soft laugh.

“That’s what you say when you know what I’m going to ask next,” he said. “Guessing the answer’s no?”

“When it’s published, I’ll read it to you,” John promised him. “Straight through, from morning to night every day until it’s done, if you ask me to.”

“So it’ll be a long book, will it?”

“Everything’s long until the end’s in sight.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.” Henry sighed, but when John turned to see what was the matter, he just smiled at him, his lips pressed thin together. “Let me watch you work, then?”

John cocked his head. “You could, but you won’t be getting a reading out of it from me,” he replied.

“I know, I figured. Just like to be near you while your thoughts are going, is all. I’m one of the only people who’s seen that John, and I’d like to appreciate him.”

And then he had the gall to shrug, as if there was nothing to what he said when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Seized by bruise-soft affection, John dropped his sponge and shut off the faucet. He went to Henry and pulled him into his chest, dropped a kiss to the top of his head.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll spend some time working tomorrow, and you can commune all you wish with that John.”

_“Tomorrow, tomorrow,”_ Henry sing-songed, _“I love you, tomorrow.”_

* * *

When he next picks up his notebook, John feels like he ought to apologize. He puts pen to paper, and holds the nib there for a minute straight, watching without seeing as the ink bleeds out in a growing circle, through to the next page and to the page after that. This is the most use the paper has seen since its purchase, at any rate; he only wishes it could be something better than a stain. Something with meaning, rather than something laden with what he cannot let himself say.

What he cannot let himself say, he hears. Wednesday rolls around again, and with it comes his weekly lunch with Francis, this time at a bistro not far from the shop where he used to get his typewriter repaired. It had served him faithfully from the start of his career to the end of it, and he has let it become a relic rather than bring himself to get rid of it. He cannot understand why, but something in the back of his head he refuses to acknowledge tells him that it has Henry’s hands on it, and his grip is what prevents John from parting with it.

This time, John is the first one to arrive, and orders a cup of tea for himself and asks for a coffee, as well, for Francis. The two arrive within a minute of each other, first Francis and then his coffee, for which he gives the waitress a tight nod in thanks. As he opens his jacket to sit, John recognizes his scarf as one of James’.

“Well,” is the first word out of Francis’ mouth, before he can remark upon it. “Have you written any?”

John shakes his head and busies himself with pouring his tea. It is honey-colored, smells comfortingly floral.

“I took your advice, John. It’s only fair you try some of mine.”

“I have, Francis,” John sighs. “Tried, that is.” He lifts his eyes to see Francis’ brows twitch up; purses his lips and sets the teapot down. “Nothing’s come of it. I’ve only managed to drip ink on the page, I haven’t gotten a single word out.”

“I believe I remember you telling James once that anything on the page at all is something to be celebrated,” says Francis with a hint of a smile threatening at one corner of his mouth. “Especially when words are what pay one’s bills.”

Truthfully, John remembers himself saying that once or twice to a James nearly tearing his own hair out--  _ nearly, _ because he would never take out his frustrations on his own scalp, but only just-- but that was different. James’ career had depended on his writing. John’s is on the decline, and his efforts have shifted from completing novels to transitioning into a quiet retirement. Quiet has never been a word he has felt qualified using to describe his life, but now he thinks that it is something he can at least grow used to, if he cannot enjoy it. He stays quiet, stirring his tea and pretending to skim over the menu even though he has already decided what to order. After a moment, he hears Francis shift in his chair and open his own menu. He hears the clink of his cup against its saucer as he sips his coffee, and then again when he sets it down.

“You used to love to write,” Francis says after a while. “It was all you could do to remember to get food in you and shut your eyes once in a while.”

“Well, that was the ‘60s,” John points out with a dry chuckle, a quirk of his lips which leaves the both of them unamused. Francis has never had much patience for diversionary tactics, and the bulk of John’s misdirection is one he stages against himself. “Things’ve changed, Francis. Writing just isn’t something I can do anymore-- isn’t something I can do to  _ myself _ anymore.”

Of all people, Francis understands best that things have changed. The absences in both their lives mirror each other. They would never pit their losses against one another’s, or compare their grief, but at least the two of them have some kind of empathy gained only through living through the same terrible circumstance which closes off anyone’s support but each other’s.

“Then do it  _ for _ yourself, hmm?” says Francis with a tilt of his chin, and before John can reply, the waitress comes to take their orders.

Their conversation turns to happier things after that. Over the past weekend, Francis visited one of the Thomases he keeps on hand, a man he considers a surrogate son. He lives out in the country, in relative privacy, with a man he calls Ned and Francis calls Edward. John has met them once or twice, and those one or two times had been with Henry, but Thomas had insisted, like John, on helping with the dishes, and they had exchanged pleasantries on their own in the kitchen while the more social of their group had carried on a conversation in Francis’ and James’ living room. He remembers him as a man who falls at the bottom of the list of his own priorities, who needs at all times someone for whom to care. Certainly Francis had fit the bill, because he speaks fondly of having to remind Thomas that he may be getting on, but he is far from an ailing old man. Still, he knows that Francis is pleasantly surprised that there are people in the world who care about him, as he is at every birthday party, every holiday spent in the company of friends. Every Wednesday lunch outing with John.

They eat, and after they have fussed about whose turn it is to pay the bill as per tradition, they stand and wrap themselves in scarves again. In the time they had spent having their lunch, it had begun to rain. John walked, and Francis drove, so as they make the short trip to Francis’ car Francis offers to drive him home, which John accepts.

He intends to make conversation. What he says is, “That scarf was one of James’ favorites,” and it is a miracle that Francis does not send them both through the windshield; the car stutters, but does not jolt to a stop. John sees him nod, a jerk of his chin like he is keeping a lot of things in check that he had not expected to have to rein in.

“Hmm,” he agrees. One hand leaves the steering wheel to touch the scarf, rubbing the brocade between his thumb and forefinger. Francis rarely wears material so rich, prefers wool over most else. But he prefers James even over wool, and that is what makes the difference. “He wore it to his last book reading.”

“Ah.” Now that he mentions it, John remembers. He, Francis, and Henry had sat in the front row to the left of center, and afterwards, they had gone back to John’s and Henry’s for what John had assured everyone was very chic finger food.

Francis hums again. His throat works against something silent. “He hated being seen in his reading glasses,” he says at last. “Thought everyone would think he looked like a stodgy academic.”

“If anyone did, he dispelled that illusion as soon as he sat down,” John replies, and Francis makes an odd noise in his throat. For a moment, John thinks he has stepped where he should not have, that in bringing up James he has also brought all the emotions that come with his memory at full-blast, but Francis only smiles thinly, shakes his head.

“He had a way of doing that, didn’t he?” he wonders. “Dispelling illusions. He did that as well as he put them up.”

“He never wanted anyone to see him until you,” John says softly. “There was no part of him he didn’t want you to see.”

“I know.” Francis pulls the wheel through a turn, sloshing rainwater up onto the curb. “Whether that says more about him or about me… that part I’m not so sure about.”

“It says a lot about the both of you.”

It is quiet in the car, the only sound coming from falling raindrops as they hit the windshield and the roof. As they run streams down the windows, they cast grey shadows upon Francis’ cheeks. “Doesn’t it,” says Francis.

“It says that you loved each other a great deal.”

They reach John’s building shortly thereafter. Francis parks, and the two of them lean over the console to give each other an awkward sideways hug and a pat on the shoulders, before bidding each other goodbye. As John pulls his muffler close around his neck and tucks it snug under his jacket, Francis tells him, “You give good advice, John. It’s a shame you don’t offer yourself any.”

“I’m a writer, Francis, not a philosopher.”

“Hmm.” Francis’ eyebrows arch. “So you  _ are _ a writer, after all.”

* * *

The phone rang once, twice. John hadn’t heard it go, absorbed in his writing as he was and hunched over his typewriter so that the only thing he could hear was the clicking of the keys. Henry had been the one roused from it, stirring from his nap and extracting himself from the blanket John had tucked over him.

“John?” he asked, still half-asleep and fully drowsy. “Is that the phone?”

It rang again as John straightened his back, and he heard it that time. “I’ll go get it,” he said quietly. It was late. Henry looked up at him and watched him leave the room, and they passed an unspoken communication between the two of them: it was Francis. And if it was Francis, then he was calling about James.

The phone seemed to appear at John’s fingertips the moment he set foot in the hall, but he found himself in the kitchen, catching the call on the fifth ring. “Francis?” he said, holding the receiver to his ear with both hands. At first, nothing came, but then he recognized the scratching sound on the other end as the sound of someone’s breathing. “Francis?” he tried again, starting to hope that it was a prank caller or a wrong number.

“James,” said Francis, his voice cracking as it stretched the vowel. From the office, there came the shuffling noise of Henry getting up from his chair and coming to check on John. He would find John blinking, his brows scrunched together, as he tried to piece together how dire the already dire situation was, trying to triage a bullet wound.

“Have you called an ambulance?” John heard himself say; yes, an ambulance would be prudent, and was something Francis would not be likely to forget. He kept his head in a crisis. He had called an ambulance, John decided.

Francis did not reply, or, rather, he did not answer the question. He made a sound as if trying to, but it faded out. “James,” he said again.

“Francis,” John said, “have you called an ambulance?”

Silence from the other end. John’s heart hammered up in his collarbone, he felt the force of it rattle his molars.

“Francis?”

“James.”

There was an audible swallow, and a shuddering breath after it. John heard a loud sniffle. From the doorway, he felt Henry’s eyes bore into his shoulder, but he could not turn and face him or do anything other than press the phone to his ear and will Francis to speak again, even though he knew what he was going to tell him. Not how he would say it, but he could surmise the gist of it. From the weight of Henry’s gaze, so could he.

“He died,” Francis gasped. He seemed to fight for each breath between his words. John’s breath, too, left him, and he felt his nose sting with the beginnings of tears. He had already known, since he had heard the phone ring, but hearing Francis say it was worse than knowing.

When he could speak again, John nodded, mostly to himself. “Francis, have you called an ambulance?” he asked. Took a long breath. “They’ll be able to take care of him.” It felt like an absurd thing to say, but, then again, it seemed absurd for James to die at all.

“I won’t see him again,” Francis said. “There’s a body in my house, and that body is James.”

His voice broke, and John heard him dissolve, as well as the dull sound of the receiver landing on Francis’ counter. John let his head fall forward until it met the wall, and a moment later, felt hands on his shoulders. He pressed one of Henry’s hands, giving his fingers a sad squeeze. After a while, Henry gently coaxed the phone from John’s grasp and took it, sitting down at their kitchen table.

“Francis, this is Henry,” he said, his voice soft, but not nearly as choked as either John’s or Francis’ had gotten. “Have you called Dr. Goodsir?”

John could not hear what Francis said to that, but guessed that this was the first number he had called. As he watched Henry, Henry caught his eyes, and then looked back down at the table. “John and I are going to get in the car and head to yours,” he told Francis. “While we’re on our way, call Dr. Goodsir. He’ll help. He’s in our corner.”

There was a pause, and Henry met John’s eyes again. “He won’t let him be lost to you,” he said, and John realized that Henry meant these to be instructions for him just as much as they were for Francis.

They passed the next half hour in relative silence. John helped Henry with his coat and muffler, Henry reminded John not to forget his keys on the way out. They drove while the sun set; it should have been beautiful. It felt like a dusk of a different sort. When they arrived at Francis’ and James’ home, they found the door unlocked the moment they tried the knob. All of the lights were off, except for one coming faintly from down the hall. They followed that, pretending not to follow Francis’ weeping.

Dr. Goodsir arrived minutes later, every inch the frazzled man John had met on a handful of occasions, but with none of his usual jitters about him, which he was glad for. Henry greeted him, and the two of them kept their voices quiet as they discussed what had happened. John had only just managed to coax Francis out of the bedroom and into the living room, and now sat with him on the couch, a box of tissues held between his knees. Dr. Goodsir disappeared down the hall, and Henry joined the two others in the living room. As he sat in the armchair, Francis lifted his head.

“I’m sorry, Henry,” he said, face red and swollen about the eyes. His voice had the quality of someone who had been held with their head underwater for a long time, and had only just come up gasping for air. “The both of you, I’m sorry. But Henry, you shouldn’t have had to hear what I had to say, and I’m sorry for the way I said it.”

Henry’s lips thinned into a line, and he closed his eyes for a second before opening them again and nodding. “Thank you,” he said, reaching over to pat Francis’ hand.

Looking back on it, the night would come to feel like a dream, the memory of it coming only in the vague shapes of events, an insinuation of scenes without any particular order. One minute, John was driving towards where the sky became pink, Henry beside him; the next, Dr. Goodsir was sitting on the coffee table, speaking to Francis in a hushed voice. James was dead, James was alive. The evidence of him remained all around them in the book left on the end table, a bookmark sticking out of it close to the end, in the tailored navy peacoat hanging by the door, in the way Francis sat off to one side as though leaving space for someone else beside him.

* * *

“John?”

“Yes, Henry?”

“What will you say at my funeral?”

“Christ, Henry-”

“I’m only- I’d like to know. Please.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to say what I’d like to say, then.”

“Then say it to me, here, so I can at least hear it.”

* * *

John wakes up one morning to the silence of the apartment. These early minutes are the most uncomfortable, as he showers and dresses and makes breakfast for himself. His lips part only to eat, drink, and brush his teeth. Occasionally, he yawns. He finds his notebook on the coffee table where he had left it the other day, stained from his most recent half-hearted attempt at writing, and continues on past it. He puts a record on the player, listens to Ravel and feels things start to arrange themselves back into some semblance of comfort. What he doesn’t admit to himself is that this isn’t comfort, not really. It’s the absence of discomfort; it’s denial.

That, too, he denies himself.

When the record stops, John finds himself in the hallway, his hand on the doorknob of what had been the office, as if he had sleepwalked there. His body knows the route better than his conscious mind, his wrist already twists as if to open a closed door rather than one permanently ajar, and all the while, John tells himself,  _ You don’t have to do this. You can stop, it’s not worth it to press on. _ Another part of him says,  _ Either it’ll hurt a little bit, forever, or you can make it start to stop. _

_ Took you long enough, _ a third part tells him in a burst of warmth that starts in his chest and makes him dizzy.  _ You can do it, I’ll be right here with you. _ John braces his hand, twists the knob, and pushes the door open.

There is dust everywhere, so much of it that he has to pause and cough, holding his arm up to cover his nose and mouth. A layer of it, like fallen snow, covers his bookshelves, his desk, his typewriter. Sunlight has blanched the wall behind him, but the armchair, tucked safely away in shadow, has been spared. A blanket lies folded in quarters and draped longways over the back of it. The fringed ends fan out across the seat. John stands in the doorway, afraid to enter the room, as if that might shatter the stillness of it, open it up to time and dissolve it away entirely.

He has already lost more than he thought he could survive losing; he steps inside.

He goes first to the bookshelves. The bottom contains his old notebooks, arranged not in any particular order but whichever way he or Henry happened to put them back. He identifies them by the spines, recalls the year each one came from, where he was and what he had been writing about. Henry had invented a game for them wherein he picked a notebook at random and asked John where he had been, what he had been thinking about, what was going on while that particular notebook was in his bag. The next shelf holds his old manuscripts, both accepted and rejected, marked up and down with red pen. Some of them James has annotated, too, and John has the thought that perhaps he should invite Francis over, and the two of them can look over them, laugh about whatever James had had to say, his witticisms and criticisms immortalized. At eye level, those are John’s published works, paperbound and dog-eared from Henry’s reading, displaying their love in their wear. The rest of the shelves are full of miscellany, ink and pens and reams of paper. A hole punch, a handful of change. A shopping list.

The desk gives him pause. John approaches it from the side like it’s a horse he’s trying not to spook. When he touches the surface of it, dust comes off grey on his fingertips and leaves four clean spots behind. There sits his old Selectric, a half-written page sticking out, bent backwards over itself where it had folded under its own weight. Next to it is a stack of pages, typed and ready to go, but never finished.

* * *

John swallowed, blinking as the beginnings of tears stung his eyes. The longer he went without speaking, the worse it got. Beside him in their bed, Henry blinked back. He reached out, his hand wobbling in the air before falling against John’s cheek, thumb sweeping a curve under his eye.

“Whatever I could say,” John decided at last, feeling his tears abate but something more sticking in his throat, “you couldn’t possibly deserve, only because you deserve better than there are words that exist.”

Henry had laughed at that, his breath warming John’s chin. “You always have to sweep me off my feet,” he said.

“I love you,” replied John. Henry shivered, and John pulled the blankets up farther around the both of them, pulled Henry to him with the arm he wasn’t laying on. One of them gave a yawn, and the other echoed it, the two of them settling comfortably into rest.

“That’s what I would say,” he whispered, once he was sure Henry was asleep. “I would say that you’re the most fearless man I know, and that nothing in the world could compare to what you mean to me, and that I love you.” He kissed Henry’s cheek before closing his eyes, himself. That night, he dreamed that he was walking across a vast expanse of jagged rocks, knowing only that Henry would be there when he stopped and that he needed to reach him.

* * *

John sits at his desk. Like a maestro at the piano, he sets his fingers to the keys of his typewriter and puts Liberace to shame for hours. Whatever words had been held behind the dam of time come flooding out and over, like back when he first started writing and all the things he had been holding in his head appear on the paper like magic but for the ache in his hand and the ink on his fingers; falling into it is as easy as falling into his chair, into circumstance, into love. It feels accidental, that’s how easy it comes.

* * *

“Not even a sentence?”

John smiled, not raising his eyes from his writing at the sound of Henry’s voice but knowing exactly the way Henry looked at him, head tipped back against the back of his chair, half a lazy smile on his face. A rustle told him he was adjusting the blanket around himself, pulling it back up onto his shoulder where it had slipped free.

“It doesn’t have to be one you’re going to use,” Henry continued to ply him. “Not even from this upcoming bestseller, even.”

With a chuckle, John said, “It might not be a bestseller. We won’t know until it’s on the shelves, if it’s published at all, and then it’s up for the readers to decide.” A tap of the ball as it struck the page, punctuating the sentence.

“It will, I’m certain of it.”

“Oh?”

“I’m certain because I’ve read you-- I know you, John Bridgens.”

Here, John finally turned from his typewriter. Henry sat exactly as he had in John’s mind’s eye, down to the smile; John returned it, reaching out to stroke his cheek with the calluses of his first two fingers, tug the blanket into place for him. “Do you, now?” he asked, believing without a shadow of a doubt that Henry knew him better than anyone ever had, knew the parts and pieces of him that were hidden even to himself before Henry had discovered them. Sometimes it felt as if he was a book and that Henry his author, writing him into existence in real time.

“Hmm, I do,” Henry hummed. “So, will you read to me or not?”

John laughed again, patted Henry’s knee. He rubbed it where he knew it ached, trying to ease some of the pain. “After it’s published, Henry,” he told him. “I promise.”

The same as he had known what he would see when he looked up, he knew the expression Henry wore at that moment, and kept his eyes averted, making himself busy straightening the thick folds of the blanket into something that lay flatter along Henry’s body, draped over him like he was the subject of a painting. Still, Henry’s eyes punctured him even in his imagination, piercing deep to the place where his grief gathered. They remained on him, there, while he got back to his writing, the feeling of it falling around his shoulders as he hunched over the typewriter.

He never really understood why Henry was content just to sit there for hours on end to watch him. Not much went on aside from the tip-tapping of the keys, the accumulation of paper beside the machine as time went on, the smell of correction fluid, all punctuated by long periods of sitting back and listening to his spine pop as he thought about things. Once, twice, maybe, John had apologized for not being more entertaining, and Henry had laughed like it was the most absurd thing he had ever heard in his life-- “It’s you, John,” he had said, and then he had kissed his cheek, still laughing against the short growth of stubble.

Outside, the sky grew pinker and darker, until Henry fumbled to turn on the lamp for John to work by. John caught his hand and squeezed it in thanks, adjusting to the light he hadn’t known he had needed until it was on. “Only a few pages more,” he promised. “Not long until the end of this chapter.” Henry mumbled his sleepy response, and John smiled for it. “Then I’ll see about dinner for us.”

Henry’s shadow bobbed against the wall as he nodded. “I’ve wondered something,” he said.

“If you’re angling for a stray sentence…”

“It’s not that.” He laughed quietly. “It’s a writing question, actually, or a book question.”

“I’m listening,” replied John, turning in his chair so that he was seated side-saddle, giving Henry his full attention. He always held it well, his confidence never faltering for anything.

“Why do you write tragedy?” he asked at last, after appearing to turn his words over in his mind. “Not all of it, but a great deal of it. You’ve so few happy endings, John, I’ve wondered if you’re happy, yourself.”

The moon would have had more reason to ask the tides how they decided to move. John blinked, and as he saw the first traces of doubt in Henry’s face, reached for both his hands to hold them. “The thought that I might not be happy never occurred to me,” he answered honestly. “You’ve made sure of that, Henry.”

“Then why so much sadness?” Henry asked. “Doesn’t it make you sad to write it?”

Somewhere in him, the grief-spot ached. John felt it like an illness of his own, deep and pervasive. There was no choice but to bear it. On paper, people hurt and cried and tore at their hair. Felt anguish and grief, the salt of something taken away. They broke apart and lost pieces to them, so that even if they were to be assembled again, they would never hold water.

“It couldn’t,” said John. “Not when I have you.”

After he finished his chapter, he helped Henry up from the chair, and they left the room, John for the kitchen and Henry for their bed. He said he would go for a nap while John cooked, if that was alright, and John told him, “Yes,” and that he would wake him when it was ready.

* * *

_ Henry Peglar, 32, passed away on 21 July, 1978 at his home. _

* * *

The phone rings twice. John nearly hangs up in the time between the second ring and the third, but his fingers won’t let go of the receiver. He clings compulsively to it, presses it to his ear so that he feels the edges of the little holes against his face like cookie cutters on his skin, or the mincing plate of a meat grinder. If he allows himself a millimeter of slack, he might crumple completely.

There’s a plastic click-clack as Francis picks up. “Crozier,” he says with a clarity that might have made John jealous if he were prone to envy. He finds his throat all dried up as he goes to speak, his words spent on paper.

“Henry.” His breath scratches the handset. Everything scratches. His life grates against itself. “Henry,” he says again.

There’s a sigh from the other end, “John.” A beat later, “Breathe, John. Can you?”

Breath; John hadn’t realized he wasn’t. How Henry had kept so calm, so content in those last months eludes him because he feels he’s imminently about to die and it creeps up his throat to stop his breath on every inhale. “Henry.”

“Breathe with me, John,” Francis tells him, slow and measured. A rushing sound, like the waves rolling in, comes through now, which John listens to over the pounding of blood in his ears. Pushing past that, he pulls in a breath that stutters in the middle, but fills his lungs, and another one identical after that. “Good,” he hears in his ear, in Francis’ soothing brogue. “Just breathe, for now.”

He breathes, until whatever had been mounting abates; it doesn’t disappear completely, but it stops before it can overtake him, which is as much as he can hope for right now.

“I’ve finished the book,” he says, when he can get a sentence out, one that isn’t a litany of Henry’s name. The back of his throat rises up and threatens to choke him. He listens to Francis’ breathing on the other end and keeps tempo with it. It’s funny, he thinks, how the unconscious can raise itself to consciousness, can hide itself in his periphery for months and then make itself known with a gentle reminder. How he can live for more than a year with his world upended, convincing himself things were the right way around. “I was in the office today. I’ve not been ever since, Francis. Everything was as it was, only he wasn’t there, and when I sat at my desk there was a paper in the machine and I was compelled to finish it.”

Hours had passed, John at his desk while the sky went dark outside. It had reminded him of that final evening, he thought but didn’t want to think, and that was what had pained him so badly about it. It felt finished; he couldn’t put the book down just yet. He wants a completed work to grow pages because he’s unhappy with the ending. A tragedy is only a tragedy depending on where you end it. Light reflects off of the walls of the tunnel, but you can’t see it until you round the bend. The tragedy of his life is that he had ended it without his own knowing, and went on living it out like an epilogue.

“It was going to be Henry’s,” he murmurs down the line, his breath hitching. “He never liked tragedy, but he read mine out of principle. Wanted to read this one, too, but I always told him to wait until it was published.”

Francis’ is the first silence John’s been grateful for in a long while.

“I’ve written him over,” John says. At that, some part of the scaffolding that keeps him upright bows, and he sags against the wall of the kitchen, his forehead hitting it with a dull thump. His mouth pulls into a grimace. He shakes his head, rolling it against the wall. “Francis, I’ve written him over. I should’ve never gone in. Should’ve never sat down like I did, oh, Christ, Francis…”

There’s another lull as Francis sighs. It whistles through the receiver. “You haven’t written him over, John,” he tells him. From Francis, it sounds like a definite fact by virtue of his voice. “What makes you think you have?”

What makes John think he has? The fact that he hasn’t been into his office since Henry died; the fact that the room had remained untouched for so long, everything exactly as it had been left that evening when John had cooked dinner and Henry had gone for a nap and not come back from it; the fact that that was the one room that had held its place in time, only for John to shatter the vessel of it and let it empty what it had carried. The fact that he had been able to do it in the first place without some invisible force stopping him before he opened the door.

“I’ve finished writing the book without him here to hear it,” John says at last, the words expelled on a shuddering breath. He gasps through his nose, feels the evidence of tears plugging his throat. “It shouldn’t exist without him.”

“It doesn’t.”

John scoffs miserably.

“What I mean,” says Francis, “is that it doesn’t exist without him-- its existence isn’t without him, even now. James’d never forgive me for such a cliché, and neither will you, but, he’s still with you.”

“I think about him every day,” John whispers, closing his eyes tightly.

“I know you do.” Another pause. “Same as I think about my James every day. As if he’d ever let me forget him, anyways.”

John pulls in a stuttering breath that tastes like salt. “He asked me almost daily if I would read to him,” he says, as if in a confessional. “I never offered him a sentence, not a single word. I couldn’t… I…”

“You were afraid that by reading to him,” says Francis very softly, “you would give him permission to die.”

A sob breaks free from John’s chest. “Yes.”

Once, when they were sitting in the office while John typed and Henry sat with a blanket around his shoulders and watched him, Henry had told him that they had too much fear. It stunned him, because who could look at Henry and see any fear there, let alone an overabundance of it? He seemed to face the world with his arms outstretched, eager for an easy go or for a challenge, whatever he met that day. And John, he had smiled and nodded along, and somewhere along the line, he had convinced himself that Henry’s courage was proof that John’s fear did not or could not exist. He knew, now, though, that Henry had been as scared as he was, but he hadn’t locked his fear away in an office, hidden it from his own mind like John had. Instead he had faced it, a bit every day, let it come to him on his own terms. His Henry was brave that way.

And he had died anyway, permission granted or not. John could have given him an extra bit of happiness before he’d gone, read him his first happy ending. Instead, he’d kept it to himself like he had kept his fear. He pulls the phone away from his face and cries ugly tears to his kitchen like he had written the last chapter of his story earlier tonight, like the spilling over of something that’s been long building.

“You don’t need to grieve him forever, John,” Francis tells him gently when he finally picks up the handset again. John recalls him in the early days after James’ death, stoic and reticent. How he had softened up like something left in the sun, and John had watched him and wondered how he could weather something so earth-shattering as that loss. “I’m not saying you’ve exceeded your time limit, or that there’s one at all, but your grief doesn’t have to go on forever. Don’t let it shackle you.”

It sounds too much like letting go for John’s tastes. The thought makes him anxious the same way looking out the back window while driving away from home would. If Henry is a set of shackles, John would be happy never to move again. But Henry would hate to be that for him, a chain affixing him to the past. “I can’t imagine what’s left for me without it,” he replies with a sad pull of his lips. “I can’t throw Henry away like that. I know you’ve not thrown James away.”

“There’s more to them than just our grief,” Francis tells him. “We love them, we keep them in our love. We’ve loved them without grief before, we can love them without grief again someday.”

John sighs, sweeping his hair back from where it’s fallen in his face and sticks to his cheeks. His breathing has evened out by now, thank god, but the tears still come as they please. He feels very brittle. Thinking about Henry still hurts him, but there’s also some part of him that believes-- that knows, such as it knows his notebooks by heart-- that it pleases him that he and Francis are having this conversation, and that he’s finally finished the book, even if Henry will never hear it himself. The last thing John had written before today had been Henry's obituary, a clinical statement of his death; he would be glad, John thinks, to know that things have gone along in his absence.

“Can you?” he asks Francis.

“Most days,” Francis replies. “Some days I’m more successful than others. It’s not a linear thing, though I suppose love isn’t a linear thing, either.”

Nor is it circular. There will not be another Henry in the future, and even if John stumbles upon one sometime years out, John thinks he would prefer his own over the newcomer. He won’t be tied to a ghost, for his sake as much as it is for Henry’s sake, but nor will he chase shadows. But he’s tired and rough-throated and all cried out, and he can choose to grieve as he feels he ought to without guilting himself for not feeling it when he doesn’t.

“If Henry were on the line,” he finds himself saying, “he would tell you that it’s two curves with a point at the bottom.”

It feels strange to laugh at that, but he does, and so does Francis, and the tears come faster, and his heart hurts more, but he recognizes it as the sweet kind of hurt as squeezing an overripe fruit. “James might say something like that, himself,” Francis agrees, and John thinks back to the manuscripts on his shelf.

“When I was in the office, I found some of my old drafts with James’ notes,” he says. “I’d wondered if you’d be interested in going through them.”

He can hear the smile in Francis’ voice as he answers, “I’d like that very much.”

* * *

The process of publication is never a short one. John’s first draft required more than a little bit of polishing, since it had been written nearly a year apart from itself. More than once, he was reminded of the ship of Theseus-- how much editing does it take before you’ve written a different story than the one you started out writing?-- but the thought didn’t phase him. It had only ever been what it would turn out as, and every rewritten sentence and struck paragraph served to carry it to that point. The author becomes a steward, in that way.

John’s newly-published book does not top the bestseller lists as soon as it hits the shelves, but it lingers in the lists. Critics call it surprising, a change of pace and tone from a writer who most often restrains his joy and ruminates on his sorrow. A collection of J. Bridgens’ best works will not be complete without it.

When John receives his advance copy, its jacket shiny and fresh, he opens it to the dedication first and runs his thumb over the words.

_ For Henry. This one’s a comedy. _

He kisses the page and turns it.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, find me at [edward-little](http://edward-little.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
